This invention or discovery relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree which bears yellow-fleshed freestone fruit having a deep red skin color when fully ripe and which is mottled with yellow during the ripening stages. This new variety is of the type embraced by group III of the classification of Callavet and Souty, Monographic des Principals Varietes de Pechers, 1950 edition, page 46. This new variety originated as a bud mutation of Stark "Red Gold" in the applicant's orchard located near Wapato, Wash. and has been asexually reproduced at said location by topworking of mature orchard trees so as to establish the genetic stability of the new variety through successive generations.
As compared with Sun Grand (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 974) has leaves with reniform instead of globose glands and bears fruit which is larger in size, ripens approximately ten days earlier and has less red exterior color during the ripening stages. It ripens some two to three days earlier than its parent "Red Gold" which it otherwise resembles in most respects other than the deeper red and more uniform red color of the fruit at full ripeness of the new variety as compared with the parent variety.